


Man up, Tozier

by GalekhXigisi



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, M/M, Multi, No Beta, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Slight adjusting to canon, but generally canon compliant, not inherently streddie but can be read as so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 16:46:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: Richie reads the note Stan sent him.





	Man up, Tozier

It’s just a few words. They shouldn’t have reduced Richie to a broken sob, but they had, so much so that he was just a fucking mess. He didn’t even get all the way through it. It was the same words they had parted with years ago when Maggie Tozier decided she didn’t like Derry anymore and wanted to move back nea her sister. That had been so damn _ long ago. _

_ Man the fuck up, Tozier, _ it says, _ tell Kaspbrak you love him. _

He can’t do that now. No, no, not in the least. It makes sobs rip from his throat, the man sobbing so hard that he thinks he’s going to end up losing his voice. It’s a violent cry that he hadn’t experienced in, well, he thinks _ ever. _ He isn’t sure. He was the most emotional of the Losers, always ready to cry, even if the others didn’t think so. He could cry at anything, _ would _ cry at anything. He cried more than Beverly could even imagine, much less any of the others. 

Outside of Stanley, that was. 

Stan had sat through more breakdowns than anyone else, holding his best friend when he sobbed so hard that he couldn’t even talk. Those were some of the worst nights of his life. Stan had been there the day after Pennywise, which was just a day or two before the last day of school. Richie wasn’t sure now. The entire school had known about the _ Richie Tozier sucks flamer cock _ graffitied all over the bathroom stalls of any and all the restrooms. He had broken down again and again, something happening so often that it was just _ normal. _ He couldn’t escape the shit he got at school and just generally around town. His friends hadn’t said anything, _ thankfully, _ but they must have known, they couldn’t _ not _ have. 

The paper is soaked in tears. He’s already been to the funeral. It had been just after he left Derry, invited to it by Stan’s wife. They had no kids, were _ almost _ officially official. It killed Richie in ways he couldn’t even describe to any of the other Losers. He had lost his two _ best friends _ all within the span of twenty-four hours. He didn’t get to say goodbye to either of them, didn’t get to tell them he loved them. He didn’t get to say or tell them how much he had missed them, how much they _ mattered _ to him. Instead, they had parted with a million unsaid words and a million aching feelings that just sat and decided to stew beneath a mysterious exterior. 

He sobs into the paper, holding it to his chest, wrapped in the jacket that wasn’t his own but instead one of the few things he had taken from Eddie’s bags. He clings to the two objects like they’re his last lifeline. Secretly, he knows that they are, that there’s nothing else he can do about any of it. He misses the two so much that he doesn’t think anything could ever fill the void they left. 

Unfortunately, he knows that it’s the truth.

**Author's Note:**

> Somber little oneshot because I've been thinking about the clown movie :(
> 
> here's my discord server!  
https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


End file.
